Q. The story is told through the point of view of an unnamed check-out girl. What was your intention behind choosing to identify her in this way?
A. I started “Check-out girl” being fascinated by the different meanings that could be gleaned from the term “check out.” There is the literal customer service position, which is inherently transactional, monotonous, and unpersonal. There is the condition of being checked out or being mentally disengaged from one’s surroundings. And then there is the act of checking out, or examining someone’s appearance, usually superficially, sometimes sexually. I was interested in exploring how these different meanings could converge or challenge each other within a single experience. Referring to my protagonist solely as “check-out girl” speaks to my original intention, while also recreating the feeling of depersonalization and objectification that comes with being a woman in her position.
Q. As the check-out girl goes about her daily life, there is a strong contrast between the mundanities of her job and the extravagance of her imagination. How did you approach balancing these two worlds?
A. I wanted the majority of the story to take place in the present, in the motions that define check-out girl’s material reality. Her fantasies, though they take up less space, harbor intense amounts of emotional power. Her imagination offers her a form of escapism and propels her to imagine a new reality for herself. But her visions also perpetuate the idea that her self-worth is dependent on certain material things (for example, the clothes and shoes literally being items for sale, replacing the items in the grocery store). I wanted both of these things to be true at the same time.
Q. This story explores the ways women perform different versions of femininity, to be beautiful, pleasant, desirable, youthful, or accommodating. How did these pressures come into play when you were writing?
A. Many women writers, myself included, draw from our personal experience when writing. We know that there is no space, and especially no job, that is free from patriarchal expectations. In a customer service role, it may be the expectation that she is able and willing to manage other people’s emotions. It might be a manager’s expectation of what is an appropriate or inappropriate way to dress. It may be a customer’s expectation that they are entitled to a certain type of attention because she is offering a service. These pressures are not only at play when she is at work –– they are at play in every position, memory, and fantasy that she finds herself in. A lot of the experience of writing about women comes from just living life as a woman.
Q. When the check-out girl meets the sundae man, she notes that he doesn’t look at her or touch her “like that,” which she is grateful for. Although he doesn’t express sexual desire in the way she’s used to, he is asking her to give him her body in a way. Why is this request of his something she is comfortable with?
A. Check-out girl is used to being directly sexualized by her boss, without any form of financial compensation. So, I think that when she is finally offered financial compensation by someone who is not directly sexualizing her, she feels relief at not having to perform in this way (albeit a superficial relief). I think she finds comfort in the fact that he views the arrangement the same way she does –– as a solely economic arrangement, born from some degree of financial necessity. Through this lens, it might feel like she is simply making a business decision.
Q. The Raggedy Ann doll takes on symbolic weight, with the check-out girl taking her home, knowing exactly where to put her and what to make her hold. Is this an act of agency? Does she see herself in the doll?
A. Yes, I do think check-out girl sees herself in the Raggedy Ann doll. I think that daydreaming can be a form of resistance. Her vision of taking the doll away is a reclamation of childhood, a declaration of agency over her body. At the same time, however, her vision of giving the doll a new item to hold perpetuates the same relationship she has been taught. Sometimes the only way to assert agency is by finding ways of surviving or manipulating the system, rather than escaping the system altogether.
Q. The story repeatedly returns to ideas of money, debt, and what a woman’s labor is worth. What were you hoping to explore through the check-out girl’s relationship with money, particularly the contrast between the grocery store wages and the $150-an-hour escort offer?
A. The patriarchy profits from the objectification of women. The reality of the wage difference between grocery store clerk and escort is that we value a woman’s labor more when it conforms to men’s desires. A woman is worth more monetarily (albeit respected less) the less her sexuality is her own. I wanted to explore the complexity of agency, choice, and desire within a world where very few decisions we make are purely our own. No choice within capitalism is made in a vacuum –– each and every one is informed by a complex sociological architecture that binds and frees us simultaneously. How do current conversations around empowerment and free will enable or limit deeper understandings of patriarchal systems? I hope that readers will ask themselves this question.
Q. In both the grocery store job and the escort work, the check-out girl is being paid to perform a version of herself. What distinctions between the two jobs make one seem better than the other?
A. I think that working for the agency appeals to check-out girl not just because of the money, but also because of the promise of escaping into a different social class, into a different lived experience, and gaining a different type of approval. This escape is an illusion –– she is in many ways exchanging one type of freedom for another. But I think to check-out girl, the difference matters, because it allows her to begin imagining other shapes her life could take.
Q. The ending considers the difference between “checking out” and “checking in.” What is this difference to you, and did you always know you wanted to end on this glimpse of hope?
A. If checking out means disengaging from our present realities as a form of escapism, then checking in means paying attention. Communicating. Seeking solidarity. Unionizing. Listening to each other. Listening to what your body is telling you. Slowing down long enough to hear what that little voice is telling you. What it’s really telling you. Discovering what you like, what makes you unique. Discovering and voicing what you don’t like. Practicing active voice, rather than passive. Saying “yes.” Saying “no.” Reconnecting with nature. Taking a long walk. Remembering that childlike feeling of wonder. Making decisions from a deep commitment to and reverence for the self. Our world is constantly competing for our attention –– redirecting our attention may be the most powerful first step in dismantling systems of power.
I didn’t set out knowing what check-out girl’s ending would look like. But I knew that ending on a note of hope didn’t have to be unrealistic or utopian. Once I arrived there, it felt obvious. It could be a seed of hope, the simple shift in attention available to any person at any time. Available to you, reader.
Q. What are you currently working on?
A. Right now I am busy writing and rewriting a novel about trauma, memory, queerness, adaptation, and snails.
Q. Who are your influences when it comes to writing?
A. My most committed literary influences are Jeannette Winterson, Edith Wharton, and Sayaka Murata.
